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By the beginning of the eleventh century, the supply of silver in the east had become so exhausted that Vikings had to look elsewhere. As a result, they started turning their backs on Islamic coins, now diluted by other metals, and looked instead to the west, where new silver resources were discovered in the Harz Mountains in Germany. This led to an increase in the minting of coins in Anglo-Saxon England and the kingdoms of continental Europe. It has even been suggested that the intensification of attacks on England in the 990s may have been a direct result.
At that point a Christian civil servant named Ibn Sam’un, who lived in the town, intervened to help negotiate between the two sides. After some deliberation, the Rus’ agreed to a sum of twenty dirhams for each person’s ransom. Ibn Miskawayh reported that the more intelligent among the Muslims agreed, while others refused on the basis that this would imply they were worth the same as Christians.
Finally, having realised the money would not be forthcoming, Rus' resorted to a massacre. Nor did the women and boys get off lightly, being subjected to rape and enslavement.
Rus’ were not allowed to buy silks that were worth more than fifty gold coins, known as solidi. Any silks purchased had to be shown to an imperial officer who would stamp them before they could be exported. This demonstrates clearly just how important silk was in Constantinople.
Reportedly, the fortunes of the Rus’ whose first attack was so successful quickly turned: on their way back home they were caught in a storm and perished. As a consequence, an envoy was sent to Constantinople from one of the Rus’ian leaders requesting baptism, which the Byzantines were only too happy to help with.
In the ninth century, there was such a high demand for slaves in the Islamic caliphate that a slave’s price rose greatly, one source suggesting that prices reached as high as six hundred thousand dirhams. A century later, however, there appears to have been so much of a surplus that slaves would sell for no more than twenty or thirty dirhams each. Clearly, the ninth century was the heyday of the slave trader, and that is why it became such a popular business venture for the Vikings.
At times the debates have been extreme, especially on the side of the Normanists, with Adolf Hitler infamously stating: ‘Unless other peoples, beginning with the Vikings, had imported some rudiments of organisation into Russian humanity, the Russians would still be living like rabbits.’ With statements like this, it’s not difficult to understand the opposition to Viking connections and the dilemma for Slavic scholars forced to choose between a view crediting a superior, foreign people with creating their entire nation or an alternative story that is at odds with the written sources.